THE PRESIDENCY: On the Fantail

Harry Truman could not have picked a better week to get away from steamy Washington. Dressed in an old, beat-up pair of pants, an open-necked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and the most comfortable shoes he could find, the President lolled on the fantail of his big white yacht, the Williamsburg, and took his ease. When he was so minded, he shed the shirt and built up his tan.

As the President loafed, the Williamsburg cruised leisurely up Chesapeake Bay, through the canal to Delaware Bay, and slipped into the open ocean for the trip to Hampton Roads.

Easing in to the dock at Yorktown, Va., Harry Truman had one small reminder of the political storms to come. The Williamsburg was overtaken by a small runabout carrying a dozen teen-age boys and girls alternately shouting “Hurrah for Thurmond!” and singing Dixie.

But without baiting a hook, Harry Truman got what he had been fishing for for months—the pledged campaign support of organized labor. In Chicago, the A.F.L.’s paladins met, formed the Committee of Labor Executives for the Re-election of Truman. George M. Harrison of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks declared that all “but two or three” presidents of A.F.L. internationals would join.* This week, the C.I.O. executive board threw its full weight to the Democratic ticket. As an added fillip, the A.D.A., which had done its best to displace the President at Philadelphia, pledged him its support. Harry Truman had cause to be heartened. At week’s end, tanned and refreshed, he returned to Washington, ready to head for Detroit and the beginning of the campaign.

* Probable holdouts: the carpenters’ William Hutcheson, a lifelong Republican; the building service employees’ William McFetridge. The teamsters’ Dan Tobin, who is still mad because the President signed the Hobbs bill, designed to curb “racketeering” by his truck drivers, has not made up his mind.